‘The eyes of the world were on Hong Kong; now Hong Kong has its eyes on the world.’ Principal Investigator and Organiser Dr Jens Scherpe used this pithy phrase to summarise the background to the two day conference – The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons – which took place at the Centre for […]

I read the speech the Archbishop of York made in yesterday’s debate in the House of Lords during the Committee Stage of the Same Sex Marriage Bill with an increasingly heavy, sad heart. My heart felt sad because I have known John for 35 years. We were at in Cambridge at the same time at different […]

Matthew Vines loves God and happens to be gay. When reality won out during his sophomore year and he finally admitted to himself that he was gay, he was both relieved and crushed — relieved because everything that hadn’t made sense about his life finally did, and because love no longer seemed like an impossibility […]

Elaine Sommers, a trustee of Changing Attitude England, contributes this blog: ‘Stop messing about; you’re on the road to hell.’ ‘What you’re doing is sinful and against God’s laws. You need some serious prayer ministry.’ ‘You need to repent of your chosen lifestyle. ‘ Who made these strongly worded statements and to whom were they […]

July 9 was a historic day for the Episcopal Church as it declared that gender identity and gender expression are not reasons for excluding someone from the discernment process for ordination, nor from any other activity or lay position in the Church. At its triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, the church House of Deputies approved […]

The African Men for Sexual Health and Rights [AMSHeR] strongly condemns the unlawful shutting down of a human rights workshop in Kampala on Monday, 18 June 2012 by the police under the auspices of Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister, Simon Lokodo. The training workshop, organized by the Kampala-based East and Horn of Africa Human Rights […]

Election time is looming in Kenya and there is a sense of guardedness as the country moves from the dark past of post election violence in 2007 that resulted in the deaths of over 1,500 people. The upcoming election is also a litmus test of the new people-driven constitution that Kenyans came up with in […]

Today, May 17, is the day when the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental diseases. It is also the International Day Against Homophobia. Today, LGBT people living in many countries around the world come out to the streets and rallies to convey the message that homophobia is violence that cannot be […]

Next month, Andheri will get its first Gender Reassignment Clinic at Kolkilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital. The clinic will cater to those who suffer from dysphoria – a gender identity disorder. Such patients face a conflict between their actual gender and the gender they identify with — and want to undergo sex reassignment surgery. In June, Kokilaben […]

On December 27, 2007, the Supreme Court of Nepal issued a decision that has been called “arguably the single most comprehensive judgment affirming protections for gender identity anywhere in the world.” The decision in Pant v. Nepal was overwhelmingly in favor of the petitioners, a group of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) […]